Featuring Navy Search and Rescue

by Susan Weikel – Naval Air Station Fallon Search and Rescue team, The Longhorns, offer a mutual aid support unit for high altitude rescues throughout the Sierra Nevadas and off base. The unit is a team of 25 people, full maintenance personnel, air crews that handle the ropes and lines as well as work the medical in the back, and pilots. When in flight there are four to five people on board, two pilots and two to three crew members. All requests for their support goes through Eggland, Florida. They are the last to be called to accidents not involving the base. Usually because it is late at night and/or conditions, such as vertical extraction, don’t allow local agencies to access the scene, they respond.  The job then becomes get the patients out and then turned over to a higher level of care, that may be Care Flight, an ambulance, or a medical facility. Response to assist local agencies may average three to five calls a week, or there may be months with no calls. Lt. Jenny Rudewicz said, “Our primary mission is to support the base in any search and rescue that is required via aircraft that fly in the local area and personnel here on the ground. We support them, and our second mission is to support the local area with civilians in and around the Sierra Nevadas. The aircraft is the Sierra version of the 60, a little bit lighter than what the other Naval aircraft fly. This aircraft can elevate to 13,000 ft., specializing in high altitude technical rescue, has a hoist cable of 200 ft. that allows them to hover over an area of tall pine trees. All the pilots start with the same basic one-year fixed wing training and then split off for an additional 1-1.5 years of training, depending on what platform they go, for the helicopter. At this point, pilots are fully qualified in the 60. For those that are stationed in Fallon, there is additional training in high altitude flying since the training the Navy does is mostly at sea. The experience of flying at high altitudes takes some time to adjust to. The plane responds differently, and the pilots also respond differently at 10,000 ft. rather than 4,000 ft. or sea level. The team trains every day. They fly for 2-3 hours daily. “Go up into the mountains and we test the limits of ourselves as pilots and the air crew, and we test the limits of the aircraft as well. We put ourselves in pretty good situation so that when we show up on scene of the actual rescue, it’s easy and we can get in and out. We get close to terrain; our rudders will come within feet of the rocks, and mountains, and trees. The air crew will bring the aircraft pretty level with some tree lines, and it’s pretty cool to see for sure,” Lt. Rudewicz shared. Jeffery Roscoe, Leading Chief Petty Officer of the Longhorns, AWSC (Air Wing Sierra Chief) is qualified as a Helicopter Inland Rescue Air Crewman and is currently working towards Rescue Crew Chief. “I ride in the back seat as the pilots drive the bus, and we run the ropes and the hoist. Specifically, I’m one of the guys that slides down and preforms the immediate medical attention and recovery of the victims.” It has taken Jeffery 15 years to get to this point. “There’s a pipeline down in Pensacola that we go through as rescue swimmers and then also just basically as air crewman. So, I spent a little over a year down there going through schools down there, and we went through a schoolhouse where you learn how to operate the helicopter. So, we learned what the helicopter is, how to function in the back of it. That’s usually 6 months to a year. Then there’s the syllabus here once you get on board here at a training command. We have a pretty lengthy syllabus here to qualify people for the operating area.” The Longhorns also set up training days with some of the different agencies from neighboring counties. The team will go over to Minden Airfield and work/train with other first responders. They also advise that everyone carries a location device or light (The flashlight on many phones will shine bright enough to be spotted from the air.), stay put if you are able to signal from that location, and do not move injured victims unless absolutely necessary for safety issues. A memorable event for the crew was a trip to the Pacific Crest Trail in the Mammoth area, at about 10,000 ft., at night. “We took the aircraft to every limit, 5% of power margin, used all 200 ft. of the cable and had about 5 minutes on station because we were running out of fuel. We landed on top of the Fresno hospital and dropped off the patient there and flew back in the middle of the night. So, super cool to be a part, unfortunate sometimes people need our help and that’s what we train for,” Lt. Rudewicz explains with the emotion that shows why the SAR team does their job with such pride.         Sign up to receive updates and the Friday File email notices. Support local, independent news – contribute to The Fallon Post, your non-profit (501c3) online news source for all things Fallon.